Helping museum visitors appreciate art

Museum Guide App | GalleryPal, 2023

Giving museum visitors a new learning tool

▸ The Problem

Learning about art — its historical context, how it was created, etc. — can enhance a viewer’s appreciation. To this end, museums and art galleries offer visitors various ways of learning more about the art on display, most basically in the form of wall-mounted labels and exhibit catalogues.

But such ways of learning have their limitations. For instance, wall-mounted labels can be hard to read in a crowded room, and exhibit catalogues can be exhaustive and bulky. When these ways of learning aren’t readily accessible, visitors may struggle to appreciate art.

▸ The Solution

GalleryPal is a mobile app that helps users independently explore museums and art galleries and deepen their appreciation of art by leveraging a variety of familiar, unobtrusive multimedia learning methods, including assisted reality and audio guides.

▸ My Process

GalleryPal was born of a week-long creativity sprint. I received a problem to be solved with a mobile app, as well as a few preliminary research materials, and I followed a regimented design process, resulting in a proof-of-concept for a product that could actually be built.

Day 1: Understanding users

▸ The Visitor Perspective

A series of interviews had already been conducted with museum and art gallery visitors. I identified common themes in these to pinpoint major needs to address with an app.

Chief traits of visitors:

  • Enjoy art but want to appreciate it on a deeper level.

  • Need context about art to reach a deeper appreciation.

  • Are frustrated when there aren’t easy ways to get context.

  • Mostly want to explore on their own, not in a tour group.

“I like to form my own opinion about art, but it can be hard to do that when I don’t really know anything about the artist, or what their intentions were in creating the work.”

— Museum/Art Gallery Visitor

▸ The Tour Guide Perspective

There was also an existing interview with a museum tour guide about her interactions with visitors, which offered further insights into visitors’ needs and behaviors:

  • Visitors need expert guidance to appreciate art.

  • Appreciating art involves forming personal connections with it.

  • Forming personal connections with art can be highly fulfilling.

“At the end of the day ... artwork is really meant to also sort of understand yourself in an interesting way.”

— Museum Tour Guide

▸ User Persona

I developed a user persona to synthesize my insights and guide my thinking about how to meet the needs of museum and art gallery visitors.

The Budding Art Enthusiast

Junior art director in New York City

  • Enjoys visiting museums by herself.

  • Prefers newer exhibits to older ones.

  • Prefers not to research art ahead of time.

Needs a simple way of learning more about art on her own while in a museum so that she makes the most of her visit.

Day 2: Generating ideas

▸ Competitive Analysis

I wanted to know what sorts of apps already existed that museum and art gallery visitors might use. This would help me identify existing patterns worth adapting, as well as room for improvement. I found three major types of apps and considered a popular example of each.

National Gallery of Art

Museum Map App

  • Facilitates exploration by orienting users in the building.

  • Describes rooms and major works of art.

  • Offers a list of “must see” art.

  • Offers text and audio descriptions of art.

Smartify

Art Identification App

  • Accesses the user’s camera to identify art.

  • Offers interactive explorations of art.

  • Offers a shop with items related to art.

Daily Art

Art Learning App

  • Offers interactive explorations of art.

  • Links to related or recommended art.

  • Links to further reading related to art.

  • Allows users to curate lists of favorite art.

▸ Crazy Eights

I used the “crazy eights” method to brainstorm eight very different ways to help the user persona meet her goals. My sketches ranged from a practical, if dull, solution inspired by Wikipedia to a more fanciful one inspired by the augmented-reality game Pokémon GO.

Day 3: Choosing a direction

▸ Storyboards

My solutions varied widely in terms of creativity and practicality. I wanted to make an app that was engaging but could also be turned into a reality. I picked the solution that seemed most balanced and began sketching the major screens the user persona would have to navigate.

▸ Moodboard

I knew roughly how the screens of my app would be organized, but I didn’t yet know what they’d look like. I gathered imagery reflecting key ideas that the app should convey:

  • Self-directed enrichment

  • Self-reliance

  • Discovery

  • Friendly guidance

Imagery suggested pleasant, muted colors and simple, unobtrusive visuals that wouldn’t overpower or compete with the art that the user was trying to appreciate.

Day 4: Building a prototype

▸ Key Screens

I translated my storyboards into rough designs in Figma and brought them to life with the colors and imagery I’d established through the moodboard. Then I knit the screens together with interactions to make a clickable prototype for testing on potential users and gathering feedback.

Map

A map of the museum/gallery, serving as a home screen

Features:

  1. Building/floor selector

  2. Search box

  3. Buttons that reveal details and directions

  4. “Locate me” button that centers the user’s location

Must See

A list of popular works of art in the museum/gallery

Features:

  1. Building/floor selector that shows art by location

  2. Search box

  3. Buttons that open the map and show directions

Examine

An augmented-reality camera feed highlighting art directly in front of the user

Features

  1. Transparent header with basic details

  2. Transparent dialogue box with text

  3. Colored outlines to focus attention

  4. “Add to favorites” button

  5. “Audio guide” button

Favorites

A list of works of art selected by the user to revisit later

Features

  1. Building/floor selector that shows favorited art according to location

  2. Search box

  3. Buttons that expand sections to reveal a location button and links to literature and merchandise

Day 5: Gathering feedback

▸ Usability Tests

I had a prototype for what seemed like a viable product, but would actual users appreciate what it could do and find it intuitive to navigate? I recruited five people on whom to test it. Some identified as veteran visitors of museums and art galleries, while others didn’t.

I gave all of the test subjects the same scenario, asking them to imagine entering a museum that they’d never visited before, and a set of prompts such as “You really like a piece of art and want to remember it later. What might you do with the app to facilitate this?”

Findings:

  • Participants successfully and smoothly completed all prompts, validating the design.

  • Participants appreciated how the app facilitated access to information, and they wanted even more access.

  • Participants appreciated how they could curate a list of favorite works of art, and they wanted additional ways of customizing the app.

I now knew that this was indeed an app that could benefit actual museum and art gallery visitors, and I also had feedback that would help me to refine the app if I decided to develop it further into a marketable product someday. The sprint had been a success.

“Being able to have a guide like this in your own hands ups accessibility.”

— Test Subject